Rupert Burchett

Rupert is a Partner and Head of the Property department and the Landed Estates and Agriculture team, advising on a wide range of property-related rural matters.

Rupert’s specialism is in property-related rural matters, from sales and purchases of landed estates and farms to re-financings, partitions, easements, sporting leases, agricultural tenancies and licences and commercial tenancies of diversified agri-businesses.

Rupert acts for landowning clients and buyers in relation to all aspects of rural property, including sales and purchases of farms and estates, first registrations, option agreements, easements and rights of way, sporting rights, agricultural tenancies and licences and commercial tenancies of diversified agri-businesses (including sporting leases). He is regularly involved with some of the more esoteric aspects of this type of work, including dealing with land subject to the Settled Land Act 1925 and advising on notices to quit pursuant to the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986.

Rupert trained at Clifford Chance LLP and qualified in 2011. He then practised as an agricultural property lawyer in Oxford and Cheltenham before joining the Army in 2015, serving as an officer in the Army Legal Services. He retired as a Major in 2021, but continues to serve in the Reserves, and picked up where he left off as an agricultural property lawyer in Cheltenham before joining Payne Hicks Beach LLP in 2022.

Rupert is a member of the Agricultural Law Association and the Country Land and Business Association.

Rupert has a keen interest in country sports and rural affairs. He is also a keen clarinettist, and is a trustee of the Malcolm Arnold Festival.